Linux Newbie - Ontario, Canada

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nukedworker

Linux Newbie - Ontario, Canada

Post by nukedworker »

G'day!

After having a plethora of problems at home:
- open neutral in marette of wall outlet feeding computer room
- failed main 1.5 TB hard drive once power was restored
- Windows 7 didn't want to restart
I finally caved. Thankfully, due to a previous install of Ubuntu onto another HD I wasn't totally up a creek. After talking to an old friend (someone who re-ignited my love of computers in high school) he suggested Linux Mint, and that he had tried all the variants and liked KDE best. Unfortunately it was right at the time my wife was starting to apply for jobs after 8 years not working. Thankfully I was able to recover her resume, but I haven't yet been able to get my printer working consistantly (Canon Pixma iP4500) - I will be posting elsewhere promptly after this as days of hunting on the net has seen no success. I just wanted to offer up an intro to myself for anyone curious.

EDIT: After 3 days of fighting I now fixed the printer problem. Apparently it was one of those id 10 T errors. In 'cleaning' and rearranging the desk the stack of papers at the base of the printer had lifted the tray by about a millimeter (0.0393701") so it wouldn't print as it thought the door was partly closed. ARGH! :oops: It's always the little things.

As a kid I was programming in BASIC on a TRS-80 with a whopping 128k of RAM, even taking summer school courses to 'play'. However, once the Nintendo revolution came in, I abandoned ship for a while. In high school I started programming with Watcom Basic and Pascal, and eventually taught myself C (but for some reason had some trouble getting into OOP of C++). I went to DeVry for 3.5 semesters of a 9 semester Computer Information Systems program after the teachers started asking me questions because they didn't know how to do stuff. Since then I've worked with HTML, Java, and Javascript teaching myself as I went. Once becoming a nuclear operator though, I didn't need much and in the last 12 years my brain has gradually turned to mush. So while I'm comfortable and quite happy to poke and prod around, even doing things I don't know anything about, I am quite lost with Linux right now. It will be some time before Windows returns to my system, and when it does, it will be 7 again, 8 just looks dumb. I had a hard time going to 3.1 from DOS, I felt like I lost control. So I'm looking forward to learning and playing with Linux. Unfortunately I have a computer illiterate wife, and a 7 year old son who likes to play, but nothing else (about the age I was first programming).

So that's me in a nutshell. If you have tips feel free to throw them at me with as much gobbledegook as you want, but step by step with a bit of an explanation would be appreciated.

Thanks muchly,

T

System:
Host: toybox Kernel: 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.7.2)
Desktop: KDE 4.9.5 (Qt 4.8.3) Distro: Linux Mint 14 Nadia
Machine:
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: P5Q PRO TURBO version: Rev 1.xx Bios: American Megatrends version: 0602 date: 08/04/2009
CPU:
Dual core Pentium CPU E6500 (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 11733.7
Clock Speeds: 1: 1603.00 MHz 2: 1603.00 MHz
Graphics Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Juniper [Radeon HD 5700 Series] bus-ID: 01:00.0
X.Org: 1.13.0 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1680x1050@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD JUNIPER GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 9.0.2 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:
Card-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Juniper HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5700 Series] driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
Card-2: Intel 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Card-3: Logitech Mic (PTZ) driver: USB Audio usb-ID: 046d:08cc
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.25
Network:
Card: Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 Gigabit or Fast Ethernet driver: ATL1E port: cc00 bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
HDD Total Size: 8063.1GB (14.1% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD30EZRX size: 3000.6GB
2: id: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD15EARS size: 1500.3GB 3: id: /dev/sdc model: WDC_WD30EZRX size: 3000.6GB
4: id: /dev/sdd model: WDC_WD5000AAKS size: 500.1GB 5: id: /dev/sde model: IC35L060AVV207 size: 61.5GB
Partition: ID: / size: 451G used: 12G (3%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 8.59GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID:No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info: Processes: 195 Uptime: 26 min Memory: 1360.9/7986.0MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.7.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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tdockery97
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Posts: 5058
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:54 am
Location: Mt. Angel, Oregon

Re: Linux Newbie - Ontario, Canada

Post by tdockery97 »

nukedworker wrote:Once becoming a nuclear operator though, I didn't need much and in the last 12 years my brain has gradually turned to mush.
Scary to think someone with a mush-brain is operating a nuclear power plant. :lol: :lol:

Just kidding, nukedworker! Welcome to the Mint Forums.
Mint Cinnamon 20.1
The-Wizard

Re: Linux Newbie - Ontario, Canada

Post by The-Wizard »

Scary to think someone with a mush-brain is operating a nuclear power plant
have you not heard of Homer Simpson :lol: :lol:

nukedworker Welcome to the Mint family forums, [my 6 yr old granddaughter likes several of the educational games in the repository]


wizard
nukedworker

Re: Linux Newbie - Ontario, Canada

Post by nukedworker »

Actually, I'm a (working) supervisor now so I need the brain even less. You know, those who can't do, teach, those who can't teach, supervise, and those who can't supervise, manage! I started at the bottom and am working my way up. I'm not sure I can succumb to the labotomy a managerial position requires though.

Truth is, we learn lots to diagnose and problem solve, but are then required to do everything by procedure, or not at all. Keeps things safer that way, which I agree, but less opportunity for brain work. However, you need the knowledge so you can know what should happen when you do something, and why it didn't work if the expected response wasn't received. Kinda like the stupid printer: The "offline" light flashing 3 times means the door is not fully open (and subsequently won't print). However if you ignore the NUMBER of flashes just focusing on the "offline" light showing something is causing a printer problem (say, like your recent exploratory install of Linux), searching the internet accordingly, it takes MUCH longer to figure out the problem.

Oh, and no worries, I don't run a reactor - those controls are on the other side of the control room. However this fall I start my training for on power fuelling :). Right now I'm just out in the field manipulating the blue (not yellowy green like in the cartoons) glowing fuel - look up "Cherenkov radiation". It's quite cool to see in pictures, but even moreso in real life!

I'll look for the programs for my son when I'm done this set of shiFts. Thanks for the tip.

Have an Ice day!

nukedworker
jesica

Re: Linux Newbie - Ontario, Canada

Post by jesica »

Good day,

Welcome to the forum,

:mrgreen:
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